Page 48 - the-trial

going to give him a reply but had no time to do so, as hard-
ly had the man spoken than a general muttering arose all
over the right hand side of the hall. “You should have been
here one hour and five minutes ago,” the man now repeated,
raising his voice this time, and quickly looked round the
hall beneath him. The muttering also became immediately
louder and, as the man said nothing more, died away only
gradually. Now the hall was much quieter than when K. had
entered. Only the people up in the gallery had not stopped
passing remarks. As far as could be distinguished, up in the
half-darkness, dust and haze, they seemed to be less well
dressed than those below. Many of them had brought pil-
lows that they had put between their heads and the ceiling
so that they would not hurt themselves pressed against it.
K. had decided he would do more watching than talking,
so he did not defend himself for supposedly having come
late, and simply said, “Well maybe I have arrived late, I’m
here now.” There followed loud applause, once more from
the right hand side of the hall. Easy people to get on your
side, thought K., and was bothered only by the quiet from
the left hand side which was directly behind him and from
which there was applause from only a few individuals. He
wondered what he could say to get all of them to support
him together or, if that were not possible, to at least get the
support of the others for a while.
“Yes,” said the man, “but I’m now no longer under any
obligation to hear your case” there was once more a mut-
tering, but this time it was misleading as the man waved
the people’s objections aside with his hand and continued